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Melbourne-based developer Big Ant Studios has announced its next game. “Cricket 19 – The Official Game of the Ashes” is coming later this year to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Developed in conjunction with the official England and Wales Cricket Board, the game promises to be a faithful representation of the cricket series. It’ll feature men’s and women’s teams, as well as all of the host venues that you’d see on TV or in person.

On the gameplay side, Big Ant is also promising “deep enhancements” to the franchise’s AI engine that promises to deliver AI players that are “more realistic than ever before.”

“When bowling, the AI will suss out your player and team’s weaknesses, and target that with a concentrated bowling strategy. When batting, the AI will rotate the strike to protect weaker players, and actively look for gaps in the field,” reads a line from the game’s press release.

As for other new features, Cricket 19 introduces a “scenario” mode that lets you virtually re-live memorable cricket moments from history. The Career mode has also been updated with further improvements to “build a story around your player.” Specifically, Big Ant said in-game news headlines will affect your player’s career path.

This year’s Cricket 19 is the first entry for Nintendo Switch, and Big Ant talked about the benefit of being able to play on-the-go.

“We have the most active and passionate community. Many of our players logged thousands of hours with our previous cricket titles, and Cricket 19 is very much built on the experience of those players,” Big Ant CEO Ross Symons said in a statement. “Whether you’re looking to enjoy a 20-year cricket career that takes you from the club level to captaining the national team, re-create an ODI or IT20 series or take part in the Ashes, or just bash some balls around with friends, Cricket 19 has you covered.”

Big Ant is collaborating with Maximum Games from the UK on the development of Cricket 19. Maximum Games boss Steve Powell said in a statement that Cricket 19 is the “most detailed simulation of the event that we’ve ever seen.”

The PC edition of Cricket 19, which will be released on Steam, is coming “shortly after” the release of the game for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch in May. More details about Cricket 19’s gameplay and features will be announced in the time ahead.

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While few details about Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV show have been released so far, the company is starting to tease the upcoming production. Following the map and poem released last month, we now know when the series will be set.

The setting for the series has been confirmed via two tweets. They show the map once more, but this time zoomed out to reveal the island of Númenor, which fans of JRR Tolkien’s books will know was destroyed thousands of years before the events of Lord of the Rings. In addition, a second tweet of the map includes the caption “Welcome to the Second Age.” Check it out below:

In Tolkien’s mythology, the Second Age is the 3,500-year time period that leads to the alliance of men and elves defeating the evil Sauron. This epic battle is shown at the start of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring, the first of his Lord of the Rings movies, which was set in the Third Age. While we knew that the Amazon show would be set before the events of the trilogy, it seems that the writers are going way back into the history of Middle Earth.

The Lord of the Rings show doesn’t currently have a title or release date, and no casting has been announced as yet. But it’s set to be an incredibly expensive series–it was reported last year that it could cost as much as $500 million to produce, which includes the $250 million that Amazon paid for the TV rights to the property.

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3D Realms, the creators of Duke Nukem and the original Prey, have whole-heartedly embraced its past as old-school game developers. With Ion Maiden still in the wings, a throwback game that strongly emulates old-school shooters, the team at 3D Realms have more plans for another return trip to the past, strengthing the studio’s belief that there’s more to be said about games from a particular era. In the upcoming Wrath: Aeon of Ruin–launching this summer on PC– it channels the same sense of action and pacing found from the early days of the 3D first-person shooter.

In a similar vein to 3D Realms’ Ion Maiden, Wrath follows that same trend by sticking closely to the classic design of early 3D first-person shooters of the mid-90s, while also going all in on its action-horror angle. The developers, however, decided to push things a bit further by injecting some modern flair to help enhance some of the old-school aspects of its design. Built entirely on the original Quake engine, the same technology that id Software used for the 1996 FPS Quake, the developers worked closely with a number of designers and modders–including Jeremiah ‘Killpixel’ Fox–who used the tech at the time to make Wrath a more authentic game from the era.

“Everything we miss about the classic era is kind of gone now in most modern first-person shooters, and we kind of want to bring that back,” said Frederik Schreiber, Vice President of 3D Realms. “Ion Maiden was basically the restart of our [3D Realms] timeline, we basically went back to 1996. For Wrath, we actually stumbled upon a Quake modder going under the name ‘Killpixel’, who was actually working on a particular mod for the game. There are tons of mods for Quake out there, but his stuff looked surprisingly cool. We decided to work with him on this and develop it further, hiring the best people who knew Quake and actually worked on the engine back in the day, all in order to put together a true successor in spirit to what the original Quake was back in the ’90s. It’s also the first major 3D Realms game that has been made internally in over a decade.”

In Wrath, you play as the mysterious Outlander, who finds himself lost within the ruins of an old world. Eventually, he encounters an entity that tasks him with eliminating various deities and monsters lurking throughout the decaying landscape, and he’ll use a variety of grotesque weapons and mystical artifacts to do just that. Set across three chapters, with five levels each, the campaign will take the Outlander across a variety of different locations that grow more bizarre and challenging as new creatures and foes come up.

Jumping into Wrath will feel right at home for those who have fond memories of old-school shooters. With a large number of enemies in every field and narrow passage, you’ll quickly need to get accustomed to the strength and weight of each weapon to stay alive. Starting out with a wrist-blade, which offers an interesting secondary attack that can thrust you forward, you’ll quickly upgrade to more devastating tools of war like the classic double-barrelled shotgun and a poison-sack launcher. Eventually, you’ll find special artifacts that allow you to use powerful perks and skills, such as a relic that absorbs health from enemies. In an interesting twist that highlights the game’s focus on challenge, the Soul Tether artifact doubles as a spawn point and a save game mechanic. If you die, you’ll return back to where you placed the artifact, which uses up your relic in the process–essentially making saved games a tactical and finite option.

Though it’s a classic ’90s shooter through-and-through, it does introduce some more modern tricks and innovations. In addition to some new technology boosting the Quake engine beyond its previous limitations, allowing for larger levels and faster gameplay not seen in games from the ’90s, it also incorporates some gameplay mechanics and quality-of-life touches on the physics and core gameplay that emulates the ease of use from recent titles. It was interesting getting to revisit this style of gameplay after having been so used to the games of today. There’s noticeably very little filler when it comes to making your way through the levels. The action kept up at a swift pace, and it was constant. It all felt very matter of fact and to the point, which of course is by design.

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin aims to rekindle much of the same energy and tone found from the darker FPS games of the ’90s. With Quake being such a seminal game of the era, and with hardcore fans keeping the tech and spirit live in the years since, the developers plan to make Wrath a real tribute to the classics of the ’90s, while also showing that they’re still worthwhile in today’s age. Though the PC version will release first, Wrath will also find its way to PS4, Xbox One, and the Switch sometime later in 2020.

The challenges for Week 2 of Season 8 in Fortnite are fairly simple to complete. For the most part they involve dishing out damage, opening chests, or taking out enemy players in specific locations. However, one of the challenges included in the premium Battle Pass sections is a bit unusual, though not terribly difficult either.

The challenge asks players to visit the furthers points of the island in each of the cardinal directions. Now, that sounds pretty simple, but you given the strange geography of the island, you may want some specific guidance to ensure that you’re not aimlessly wandering around in the wrong location wondering why the challenge isn’t completing. It just so happens that we’ve done the legwork and have got the information you need to speed the whole process up. Take a look below for a list of the locations you need to head to.

Fortnite’s Furthest North, South, East, And West Locations

• North: Top left of the map, just above Junk Junction
• South: Bottom center of the map, below Lucky Landing
• East: Right of the map, south east of Lonely Lodge
• West: Left side of the map at Snobby Shores

If you need a hand with Week 1’s challenges, make sure to take a look at our our full Season 8 challenges guide. We’ll be keeping that up to date with new guides every week, so you shouldn’t have much trouble completing challenges and earning the Battle Stars necessary to unlock the hot new Season 8 Battle Pass cosmetics.

On March 7, Epic Games released update 8.01 for Fortnite. The big new addition as part of this was treasure maps, which fits in nicely with the pirate theme that began with Season 8. The Buried Treasure item, a map that takes one inventory slot, guides players in the general direction of a treasure. When they’re close, they’ll need to find the shaft of light denoting where to dig and unearth the goods. Of course, other players will no doubt be hanging around with a goal to swoop in at the last second and steal the goods.

The patch also updated the game with the Slide Duos Limited-Time Mode, which makes it so everyone is sliding around everywhere. Run speed is increased while friction is “greatly lowered,” and there is no fall damage. Helpfully, everyone gets a Grappler with unlimited ammo to help them gain some small amount of control.

Halo Infinite is finally, almost, set for a big reveal with Microsoft expected to discuss the game–or at least its brand-new SlipSpace Engine–at E3 2019 in June. Among the questions that has long been brewing about Halo Infinite is whether or not it will feature a battle royale mode.

Halo competitor Call of Duty has a battle royale mode in the form of Blackout for Black Ops 4, while Battlefield will soon release its own battle royale mode for Battlefield 5 called Firestorm. Of course there are also dedicated battle royale games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends. So will Halo become the next major shooter series to get on board with battle royale?

In a new GameSpot video feature, Eddie and Ed discuss whether or not a battle royale mode would make sense within the Halo universe. In the video we talk about if Halo Infinite should be just the latest pillar of Halo multiplayer, joining Arena and Warzone, or if Microsoft would be smarter to release it as a standalone spinoff.

We also talk about how Halo’s trademark Forge mode could shake things up in the battle royale space and why the Halo multiplayer formula overall is well-suited to a battle royale experience. Be sure to check out the full video above.

Halo Infinite is in development for Xbox One and PC. No release date has been announced, but it’s rumoured to be a launch title for the new Xbox consoles that are reportedly launching in Fall 2020.